Reward offered for resolution of Lamitan car bomb attack

COTABATO CITY --- The city government of Lamitan offered a cash incentive for information leading to the arrest of the plotters of the car bomb attack on Tuesday morning that left 10 dead, seven of them government security men.Lamitan City Vice Mayor Roderick Furigay said they are ready to release to informants an earnest amount once the culprits are arrested.Lamitan City is the capital of Basilan, a component province of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.Furigay and the governor of ARMM, Mujiv Hataman, had separately condemned the bombing.Initial reports from the Police Regional Office-ARMM said a still unidentified man driving a van was first flagged down by militiamen guarding a roadside checkpoint in Barangay Maganda, Lamitan City when they noticed three white plastic drums inside his vehicle.The driver, who had Middle Eastern features, reportedly set the bombs in the van off when he saw Army Special Forces personnel from another checkpoint arrived to inspect his vehicle.Talks have been spreading in Basilan after the incident purporting that the lone bomber was to bring the bomb-laden van to the center of Lamitan City where it was to be detonated.Three soldiers and four local members of the Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Unit were killed in the explosion.Two passersby, one of them a child, also perished in the blast. The biggest part of the vehicle found at the scene was its engine crankshaft. It was virtually ripped into pieces and the blast left a crater on the road where the CAFGU men flagged it down, Furigay said.Hataman, chairman of the ARMM inter-agency peace and order council, said the Western Mindanao Command and the regional police are now jointly investigating on the incident.Image below from Lamitan LGU. Image may contain text sand//scontent.fcgy1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/38132257_10156651425884168_8635302284303007744_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0andampoh=1b07482d5417745d5b78c4c9786e6e76andampoe=5C110751